What Curious Visitors Really Want From Your Lead Magnet

The money is in the list, but the fortune is in the audience

“The money is in the list, but the fortune is in the audience.”– Ben Settle

I love this quote because building a solid business with a list of quality subscribers isn’t just a numbers game. If you don’t build a relationship with your list, you’re going to have to try twice as hard to sell anything.

There was a time when internet marketers could do free things that seemed like good ideas to grow their lists. There were things like Ad Swaps (basically you email your list for your friends’ free ebook or whatever they were offering and vice versa) and solo ads. Solo ads still exist (you buy a certain amount of clicks from someone with an email list in your niche), but I’ve never tried them.

The problem with some of these tactics is that you might be able to grow a big list, but it’s probably not a very good list. Who wants a list of 10,000 subscribers that aren’t a good fit? All of a sudden you have a list of people you’re paying for who have no intention of buying from you.

Start with solving problems for your audience

Yea, yea, I know this sounds trite and overused, but it’s true.

Don’t let your ego dictate what you think your audience needs or wants. Find out what’s causing them grief and see if you can solve it for them (or at least solve a piece of the puzzle).

I’ve done a handful of lead magnets over the years, and as I’ve gotten to know my audience better, it’s much easier to determine what they want. Obviously, I can ask them, but based on my emails, content, and social shares I know what resonates most with them.

Lead Magnet

What do you do if you don’t have an audience and are just starting out?

You have to back into the problem.

Start with the End Goal (the problem you’re solving: Ex: How to get more traffic to your website)

Research the problem

Look at the competition (who else appears to be solving the problem)

What are they offering?

Can you do it better? Add more value?

When you’ve determined your end goal for your Lead Magnet, you can decide what you want to offer (for the download).

I wouldn’t go so far as to say people are developing ‘opt-in blindness’ (think similar to banner blindness, where people opt-in but they don’t pay attention to the lead magnet anymore), but how often do you think people download a new lead magnet never to go back to it? (we all have our own ‘digital libraries’ of downloaded ebooks, PDFs, courses, etc., don’t we?).

Start thinking beyond the typical ebook when it comes to creating a lead magnet.

People visiting your site are interested in the problem you’re solving for them as well as being interested in connecting with YOU. There’s a reason the ‘About’ page on websites tends to be one of the highest clicked through pages. People are curious.

Start thinking beyond the typical ebook when it comes to creating a lead magnet.

Whatever type of lead magnet you create, bring in the voice of the brand or your personality. If you communicate in a more casual style, then be sure that voice is brought into your lead magnet as well. You’re going to want to create your lead magnet in a format or medium that ties in with the rest of the content you create on your site.

Think about the easiest thing to create while providing the most value. You don’t need to give away a complete training. You can pick one element of training or something that leads to a paid course.

Remember that the goal of your lead magnet is to provide value and grow an audience (not just a list).

Lead Magnet Formats

One of the great things to do with lead magnets is to create a combination of two formats (such as the infographic and audio).

Create your hybrid combination that provides more value. It might seem redundant to provide the same content in an additional format, but if you can add more value and give your new subscriber an additional option to consume your content, it’s ideal.

Ebook (PDF)

Ebook (Kindle / Mobi format)

Presentation

Infographic

Audio

Video

Mini-course

Checklist

Worksheet

Templates

Graphics

Your Lead Magnet Content

I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep this simple.

Don’t overthink this and try to help someone become a Ph.D. on a singular topic with your opt-in.

Depending on the format of your lead magnet, introduce yourself to your new subscriber and tell them what they can expect from what you’re providing (in the example above of more traffic to your website: If you implement these strategies correctly you should see a 30% increase in traffic).

Then talk to them the way you would talk to someone you’re showing in real life. Don’t worry about dumbing down the content, be clear and specific. You can even preface the content with who it is for. That way people who might already know some of that don’t feel like you’re talking down to them.

If you can teach or tell someone about something in 3 easy steps, do it.

The goal with your lead magnet is to show them how to implement something quickly and see results.

Here’s a great example of this:

I was following launch for an Instagram product (How to use Instagram to grow your business). While watching the first video in the launch series, I implemented ONE tactic that was taught in the free video. I had already left a comment under the launch video (that I felt the content was great) but had to leave another one after I implemented the strategy.

The strategy he taught got me about 30 likes in a couple of minutes!

I was FLOORED. I hadn’t done much with Instagram up until that point and the fact that I could do this one little thing and see immediate results?

Blew my mind away.

Needless to say, I bought the entire course because the free training was so good I assumed the paid would be amazing (it really was).

AND… I added another comment with my results and my comment was included in the second video of the launch (they did a screenshot and read it out loud, including my name).

This is a powerful example of teaching one simple thing that can be implemented in minutes for results.

Don’t create a dissertation for your lead magnet. Keep it Simple. Provide Value. Get People Results.